Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Snow Patrol, Universal Music 2019.
Northern Ireland’s Snow Patrol are drip-feeding their new album due for release later this year.
As part of the promotion to build anticipation they have released one of their new songs, Time Won’t Go Slowly, and three reworked tracks as Reworked EP 1.
The band have forged a strong career since their first release Songs For Polarbears in 1998.
That album went gold and they have gone on to sell over 17 million albums world-wide and more than one billion individual track streams.
Add to this five UK Platinum albums, an Ivor Novello award, Grammy nomination and Mercury Music prize and you get some idea of their popularity.
Actually, if accolades are anything to go by they are probably more popular here in Australia than they are in the UK considering that they’ve sold 8X platinum ARIA accreditation and Diamond accreditation for their world-wide hit single Eyes Open.
Reworked EP 1 has been released to coincide with Snow Patrol’s tour of Australia which is part of a world tour that takes in NZ, Japan, Singapore, China, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia amongst other destinations.
The up-coming album will be celebrating the 25-year anniversary of the band’s existence.
Earlier this month their song Chasing Cars was announced as the most played song on UK radio in the 21st Century.
Of course it immediately followed that the song rocketed to number two on iTunes charts and is trending on Spotify and Apple music charts as well.
I like the new song, Time Won’t Go Slowly. It is a beautiful ballad that is lyrically as well as musically interesting and whets the appetite for the new material to come.
The reworked versions of Chocolate, Crack The Shutters and Open Your Eyes are good but probably of more interest to dedicated fans than the casual listener.